The Fairy Tale Theory
by HelenaHermione
Summary: "I'm looking for Penny Swan." The boy said. What happens when the cast of the Big Bang Theory gets involved in Once Upon A Time.
1. The Birthday Surprise

**So I got an idea, and apparently I'm the first one to come up with it...yay! Crazy, is it not? The first Big Bang Theory and Once Upon A Time fanfic on this site will commence!**

* * *

"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Penny," Leonard sang as he presented her with a cupcake with a candle stuck on top of it.

Penny smiled as she stared at him and the cupcake. She knew the cupcake was a silly tradition, but it always made her feel better whenever she felt lonely or misunderstood. Growing up in a dead-end life in Nebraska, roaming around with numerous boyfriends, or trying to get into acting here in Los Angeles…sometimes she felt like moping even when she was supposed to be celebrating. But with Leonard there…well, it was just an extra special treat, nothing more or less. Someday soon, she might ignore the tradition, but for now, she wanted to share it.

"Happy birthday to you. Make a wish and blow it out." Leonard said.

"Oh, Leonard, I already got my wish a long time ago." Penny said, kissing him before she blew it out, causing him to blush.

"Well, you still have got to wish for something, anything. It's against the birthday rules not to. An audition to go well, maybe?" He asked.

Penny glared at him before she said, "Maybe." She didn't feel like being pressed, especially when her acting career wasn't taking off as she might have hoped, but Leonard at least understood, mostly. There was that time a couple of weeks ago when the two of them had gotten into a huge argument because she quit her job to focus full-time on her acting career, but they had managed to work that out. She plucked out the candle and licked the icing before she grabbed the cupcake, unwrapped it, and started eating.

"Save some room for more." He told her. "We've got a big surprise for you across the hall." Leonard added, smiling. "The party is just getting started!" He opened the door to Penny's apartment and stared down at a ten-year-old boy with a backpack who was just about to knock.

"Oh. Hello, there." Leonard said, a little shocked to see a kid alone at night out in the hallway of his apartment building. He didn't even know if there were kids living here. "Are you lost? I can call security or the police to help." He said as Penny looked up and stood to see what was going on.

"I'm looking for Penny Swan." The boy said.

"Yeah, that's me." She really hated that last name of hers, never mentioned it out loud if she could help it. "What do you want, kid?" Penny asked, staring down at the boy.

"About ten years ago, you gave up your son for adoption." The boy said, shocking Leonard as Penny paled. "And I'm him. My name is Henry Mills." He told her.

"Penny, is this true?" Leonard asked, staring at her.

"Oh, boy, this is going to be one hell of a night." Penny muttered, wiping her hand through her hair as she thought about that night all those years ago when she had given up her son. She never thought that she would live to see this day. Hopefully there would be a way to settle this without any trouble. "All right, kid, we're going to have a serious discussion about the situation and then we're going to send you back home. Where do you live?" She asked.

"Storybrooke, Maine." Henry said.

"Maine? As in all the way across the country Maine?" Penny said.

"Oh, god." Leonard said, shaking his head as he realized how serious this was.

"Yeah." Henry said, nodding. "I stole my teacher's credit card, rode the bus to the airport, and then flew over here all by myself."

"Wow. Good for you." Penny said, impressed at the kid's pluck in spite of herself.

"No, not good for you!" Leonard said, groaning. "You shouldn't have done that! Henry, please, could you…go across the hall and ask for some cake or something?" He asked. "We're having a party tonight for your…mom's birthday." Leonard said, still not feeling right about referring to Penny as that. "I live there, our friends have come over, and it should be fun."

"All right, thanks. It's my birthday, too." Henry added before he turned and went across the hall.

"It's his birthday, too?" Leonard repeated.

"Yeah." Penny said, looking down. "I gave birth to him on this day."

"Oh, god, he really is your son." Leonard said.

"Yeah, he is." Penny smiled to herself in spite of everything, wondering what the kid was like. Hopefully he took after her and not his father.

Henry knocked at the door and after a minute, Sheldon answered. "You're not Penny." He stated, and lifted his head to look across the hallway like a lost, confused puppy. "Leonard? Penny? What's going on here? Who's this kid and why is he over here?" They could see the rest of their friends coming up behind Sheldon, craning their heads to see what was going on here.

"My name is Henry Mills." He said, glancing up at Sheldon and the others. "Hello, everybody." He said, waving at them as they waved back.

"Please, Sheldon, just let him in for a couple of minutes, Penny and I really need to talk." Leonard said.

"Why aren't you two over here?" Sheldon asked. "The party is going to be ruined. I had the cake evenly divided into sevenths. Do you know how hard that is with a sheet cake?"

"Just give my piece to the kid." Leonard said. "It's his birthday, too."

"Oh, really?" Sheldon asked, staring down at the kid. "Happy birthday. Do you know what the odds are of you having the same birthday as another person? It's four-"

"Sheldon, not right now." Leonard said, shaking his head as he closed the door to Penny's apartment.

* * *

"You had a son and you never told me? You never told us, your friends?" Leonard said, feeling hurt.

"Hey, it was ages ago and I never thought he would come back to see me." Penny said. "I thought he would be happy, wherever he wound up. He wouldn't want to meet his deadbeat mom."

Leonard groaned. "Penny, you're not…don't doubt yourself, okay? You're stronger and braver than I ever could be. You have a ton of good, great qualities. Any kid would be proud of having you for a parent!" He exclaimed.

"Oh, Leonard," Penny said, hugging him tightly. "Thanks, I needed to hear that." She said.

"So tell me, what happened? How did it happen?" Leonard asked.

"What do you think? I was at a really tough time in my life." Penny said. "Not a kid, and not a grown-up either, a teenager. I got involved with a criminal boyfriend, he abandoned me, and I was left pregnant. My parents said I could keep him if I wanted to, like a pet, but I didn't want to put him through hell of being with me and my family. If I could, I would have left that place a long time ago. So I gave him up for adoption to an out-of-state agency. I didn't want him growing up in Nebraska either if I could help it." She added.

"Oh, Penny…I'm sorry." He said, hugging her.

"It's okay. It was a long time ago." She sighed. "At least things have gotten better for me. I've got friends I can trust, and you to love." She smiled. "And Henry looks like a good kid. I bet he's pretty happy in…Storybrooke, Maine." She grimaced. "Who would name a place that?"

"Oh, this is a disaster!" Leonard said, finally panicking. "We could be charged with child endangerment or kidnapping or-"

"Hey!" Penny said, holding up a hand to stop him. "We are not going to panic. We are going to take him back home as soon as possible. We are going to apologize profusely, and maybe then they will forgive us or at least give us a lenient sentence for bringing him back home safely." Penny said, nodding. "I'll take him back myself. I don't want you to face-"

"No, we'll do it together." Leonard sighed. "I don't want you to face prison without someone by your side."

"Even though you'll be risking your career?" She asked him.

"Even then." He said, nodding, though he dreaded that thought. He loved being and working at CalTech. It was like his second home.

"You're pretty brave yourself, Leonard. Don't sell yourself short." She remarked. "Henry would be proud of…" She hesitated and shook her head. "Never mind that, Henry is going back home and we are going back to our normal, regularly scheduled and programmed lives." She added.

"Right." Leonard said, although he couldn't help wondering if having Henry around was going to change everything.

* * *

"So, cake?" Sheldon asked, studying the kid as he entered the apartment, wondering who he was and how he had gotten here. It seemed unusual for a kid to be there. As far as he knew, neither Penny nor Leonard had any nieces or nephews or cousins or kid relatives of any kind, especially around this boy's age. He wondered if it might be the child of a friend that Penny was asked to babysit, though that would be doubtful, as who would trust Penny to babysit a kid? He certainly never would have thought of that if he ever had any children of his own, which seemed quite unlikely. The others turned their heads, staring at the kid as well.

"Yes, please." Henry said, staring around at everybody as he approached the table, not certain what he was doing here. He wondered if they were all like Sheldon. "Uh…what piece is mine?" He asked, remembering what Leonard and Sheldon had been talking about. He had briefly encountered people like Sheldon before in the waiting room of Dr. Hooper's office and knew that they liked being in control.

"That one." Sheldon pointed and Amy sliced it off for the boy. "Leonard likes sprinkles. I don't, too much food coloring and preservative. They look like fruity birdseed."

"Oh, cool, thanks." Henry said, ignoring Sheldon's comment as he took his piece and sat down on the floor next to Raj. "Hello," He said, nodding and smiling at everybody. "I'm Henry Mills."

"I'm Dr. Raj Koothrappali." Raj said, holding out his hand for Henry to shake. "That's Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler and her boyfriend Dr. Sheldon Cooper." Amy waved and Sheldon nodded.

"You can call me Sheldon." Sheldon said, deciding to be magnanimous to the boy.

"Boyfriend? Doctor? Really?" Henry asked.

"I know." Raj said, rolling his eyes and grinning as Amy lightly slapped him. "Ow! Hey, watch it, I was only joking." Raj said.

"Don't push it." Amy told Raj before smiling at the kid. "Hi, there, Henry."

"Hi." He said, a little crept out by the lady. He glanced around the apartment and noticed some interesting decorations on the wall, comic book and TV-show related as he felt his fingers itching to check out the DVDs, video games, comic books and books lining the shelves. They certainly had a lot of good stuff, he realized.

"I'm Howard Wolowitz, and this is my wife Dr. Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz or Bernie." Howard said, grinning at his wife.

"Bernie?" Bernadette said, glaring at Howard.

"Sorry, sweetie." Howard said, shrinking down slightly.

"Wow. Are all of you here doctors?" Henry asked.

"Not Howard." Sheldon said, smirking.

"Thanks." Howard said, rolling his eyes. "But I have been to space. I'm the only one here who can say that!" He exclaimed as Henry gaped at him.

"You were an astronaut?" Henry asked.

"Payload Specialist on the International Space Station for a couple of weeks. Hold on, I'm going to find my picture." Howard said, reaching around to grab his bag.

"Sweetie, he doesn't want to see that right now." Bernadette said. "Maybe later."

"No, I do, I like astronauts. I would like to see it." Henry said before looking around at the others. "So…you're not medical doctors?" He asked.

"I'm an astrophysicist at Caltech." Raj said.

"Microbiologist at a pharmaceutical." Bernadette said.

"Neurobiologist here, I thank you very much." Amy grinned.

"Theoretical physicist at Caltech." Sheldon said. "Very complex stuff, you wouldn't understand."

"Aerospace engineer at Caltech." Howard said, looking up from his bag. "I deal with applied physics, not theories!" He grinned as Sheldon's eyes narrowed. "That's how I got on the space station."

"I thought it was your space toilet." Sheldon said, smirking.

"Sheldon, be nice to him!" Bernadette ordered.

"Sorry." Sheldon said, lowering his head.

"Anyway, here's my picture!" Howard said, handing it over to Henry. "I'll sign it for you if you want. Just don't go selling it on eBay, kid, okay?"

"Okay, I won't." Henry said, staring at the picture and the backside. He might have to double-check to see if it wasn't fake, but he had a feeling that it was real. "Wow." Henry said, shocked at meeting so many intelligent, educated, and talented people in the same room, acting not so intelligent sometimes. This really was a bizarre place.

* * *

"So…what about Penny and the other guy who lives here?" Henry asked. "What do they do? Are they scientists and doctors as well?"

"Penny? She's not a doctor or a scientist." Sheldon said. "She doesn't even have a bachelor's degree."

"Sheldon." Amy warned as the others glared at him.

"What? It's the truth." Sheldon turned back to Henry and said, "She used to work at the Cheesecake Factory as a waitress before she quit her job to pursue her acting career full-time, although that hasn't worked out."

"Oh." Henry said, lowering his head, feeling slightly embarrassed and angry at Sheldon's conceit about his birth mother.

"Dr. Leonard Hofstader is my roommate and colleague, an experimental physicist who works out the theorems that I devise." Sheldon remarked. "Penny is his girlfriend. We met her soon after she moved in here about six years ago."

"Six years ago." Henry remarked, trying to imagine his mother arriving here in Los Angeles while he was barely more than a toddler back home.

"They're bound to be engaged soon." Bernadette remarked, picking at her cake. "I'm surprised it hasn't happened already, although they are so off and on again sometimes that it makes one's head spin."

"I wish I could have some of that." Amy remarked, glancing at Sheldon.

"Tell me about it." Raj said, rolling his eyes. "Those nights when I had to comfort Penny after a bad breakup, either with her and Leonard or another guy, were absolutely dreadful."

"Oh, no." Henry said, staring up at Raj.

"She deserves better." Amy remarked.

"She's had some bad luck with men, which is a shame." Raj confirmed. "She's a stunningly beautiful girl and Leonard's a great guy. They would be perfect for each other, or at least complement each other as a couple. Though he can be a bit of a scaredy-cat sometimes." Raj remarked.

"Coming from a guy who couldn't speak to or in the presence of girls for years unless he was drunk." Howard remarked, which caused Henry to laugh.

"Hey, I never said I wasn't a coward." Raj remarked. "At least I have gotten better at it, and improved myself. Leonard has to improve himself." He told Henry, "I don't know where he gets it from. I suppose he had a horrible childhood with his over-analyzing psychiatrist and neuroscientist mother. If only he could propose to Penny without a push."

"Maybe with a sizeable charge or appropriate stimulation to his adrenal medulla." Amy said.

"I know the feeling." Henry said, thinking of his own mother Regina Mills, the evil Queen, as over-analyzing and a control freak.

"Well, that's never going to happen." Sheldon remarked. "Leonard wouldn't even accept when Penny proposed to him two months ago. Of course, she was drunk and upset over her acting career, and he thought that she wasn't in her right mind then to make such a decision."

* * *

Henry opened his mouth to say something, but then the apartment door opened as Leonard and Penny trooped in. "Hey, guys, how is it going?" Penny asked, glancing at everybody with her eyes lingering on Henry. They didn't know how much Henry may or may not have told them about his relationship to Penny.

"It's going fine." Henry said, not certain what to say to her.

"Yeah, we've just been eating and talking, introducing ourselves to Henry." Howard remarked, nodding. "Nice kid." Penny and Leonard winced, half certain that he was referring to Henry being Penny's kid.

"Thanks." Henry said, rolling his eyes. He wished people wouldn't refer to him in the third person like he wasn't even there.

"So, um…is everything all right?" Amy asked, noticing some tenseness between the couple.

"It's going to be okay, we hope." Leonard said, nodding. "We're going to get Henry back home and patch things up with his parents, set everything straight."

"Really?" Henry said.

"What do you mean by that?" Bernadette asked.

"Oh, that's good, I suppose. Have a nice, safe trip." Sheldon said, unconcerned.

"That's it? You're not going to say anything else?" Leonard asked Sheldon.

"They don't know." Penny added, glancing around.

"Are you coming back home with me to Storybrooke?" Henry asked. "Mom?" He decide to break the silence.

Almost everyone else in the room gasped, and Howard started choking before Bernadette slapped him on the back. "Mom?" Amy asked, staring up at Penny. "Is this true?"

"Yes, I gave him up for adoption sometime ago." Penny said, lowering her head.

"Oh, my lord." Sheldon said, shaking his head. "I never figured that you…well, I thought it was a possibility that somewhere along the way, you might have conceived, but-"

"Sheldon, please." Leonard huffed. "Let's not get into a biological discussion right now."

"Yeah, that would be rude." Raj remarked, picking at his food as he wondered if his tongue might have slipped too much about Penny and Leonard's relationship in front of Henry. Poor kid.

"He belongs back home with his adopted parents, though. He just came here from the other side of the country to find me." Penny said, nodding before she turned to him.

"The other side of the country?" Howard said, gaping. "That could mean…child endangerment or kidnapping charges, right?" Some of the others gasped at that.

"I didn't mean for you to get into trouble on account of me." Henry managed to say. "I'll go back home and I'll tell mom and everybody that I'm all right and you had nothing to do with this, but can you please come back home with me?" He asked. "You're just as much my mom as she is. You deserve the chance to see me at least once or twice, don't you?"

"Of course I'll come back home with you, Henry, just to get everything straightened out. But I can't stay there long, you know that, right?" Penny asked him. "I have my life here, and you have your life there, and it's better for you, Henry, if you just stick it out there."

"Yeah, I guess so, but what about a couple of weeks?" Henry asked, looking up at her. "Just two weeks?"

"Yeah, come on, give the kid two weeks!" Raj said. "You owe him that much already!"

"Two weeks?" Penny asked and then nodded. "Sure, yeah, I can stay there for two weeks or so. Leonard?" She asked. "Will you come and stay with me for that long?"

Leonard hesitated, but finally he said, "All right, I'll be there for you." Some of the others smiled to hear that.

"Wonderful." Henry said.

* * *

"Two weeks!" Sheldon gasped. "You can't be away from work, Leonard, for two weeks! You know it's a sensitive time of year, what with the board review and whatever else! You can't be away for so long or else you could lose your job. And what about me? Stuck for two weeks without anyone sensible to talk to about work?"

"What about me?" Amy asked, glaring at Sheldon. "You can talk to me about your work or whatever else that concerns you, I'll listen. It's part of the relationship contract, after all."

"Relationship contract?" Henry said.

"Don't even ask." Leonard told him.

"I know that, Amy, I wrote the thing myself." Sheldon remarked. "But still, it's not like you are my professional colleague with whom I do experiments with. You don't know as much as Leonard here does about my work, and you certainly can't help me with proving my theorems."

"I can still be there for moral support, but you don't even know what that means." Amy growled.

Sheldon frowned. "I know what that means. He's my moral support, just as much as you are mine and I am his." The others gaped at him.

"Sheldon…that's actually kind of sweet of you." Amy said, smiling.

"It is? Well, if he's gone for two weeks from work, then I might as well follow him myself to make sure that he doesn't get into trouble or stays there longer than he should." Sheldon said.

"Sheldon, please don't go." Leonard said.

"I have to, Leonard. It's for your welfare as much as it is for mine." Sheldon insisted. "Mine matters more than yours, of course."

"Me, too!" Amy cried. "I'm going for moral support."

"Oh, heck with it!" Howard cried. "Why don't we all go?"

"Oh, a trip." Bernadette's eyes widened. "That sounds like fun. We can all be there for Henry and Penny and Leonard!"

"When are we leaving?" Raj asked. "I have to pack and board Cinnamon…" The others started arguing and discussing the trip they would have to take.

"Welcome to the club, kid." Penny remarked, staring down at Henry. "It's one crazy big family."

"I like it." Henry said, smiling. "I like it a lot."

* * *

**More to come!**


	2. The Storybrooke Mystery

I had a lot of fun writing the first chapter, and I have a bunch of ideas for this story, so what the hey, it's still going on! And I enjoyed writing this chapter as well, pretty cool getting into the Big Bang Theory mindset with the Once Upon A Time backdrop. And of course, seeing as how this is Big Bang Theory (in theory) There is bound to be a celebrity guest appearance...

(Note: I do apologize if my depiction offends, it's meant to be fun.)

* * *

"No…no…please…" Leonard whimpered, rolling over in bed alone in the throes of an old nightmare he thought had died ages ago when he was a kid. He and Penny had decided that he should sleep in his apartment tonight as Henry would be staying over with his mother until their departure. Before falling asleep, Leonard had missed having Penny next to him and wished that things had stayed the same, that the kid had not even turned up, but he could not change what had happened and so they would have to face it—alone and apart tonight, but together in daylight tomorrow. Things had gotten complicated with the whole gang getting involved in the trip to Maine and all of the packing and planning that would be involved, but they had booked the plane tickets and the car rentals at Bangor for the day after tomorrow.

(Sheldon had wished there were still passenger trains that traveled all the way across the United States from California to Maine, and even tried to explore the possibilities of freight train travel, but finally Leonard and everyone had convinced him to give up on the idea. A cross country road trip was a bad idea, no one wanted to spend days cooped up in a car with Sheldon, and so flying was the only way to go, though air sickness bags for some of them and an activity kit/a ton of books and comic books for Sheldon and the kid were a must-have.)

So Leonard tried to sleep unsuccessfully and finally, the nightmare disturbed him enough to wake him—or was that the knocking on the door? The old familiar standard…knock, knock, "Leonard?" knock, knock, "Leonard?" knock, knock, "Leonard?" Leonard groaned and sat up in bed, reaching over for his glasses and turning on the light, squinting as he staggered out of bed and went up to the door, opening it up to his roommate Sheldon, who always had this particular, rhythmic, repetitive way of knocking.

"What is it?" Leonard asked.

"There is no Storybrooke, Maine. Or at least not officially." Sheldon said.

"What do you mean there is no…what?" Leonard asked, absolutely confused as he felt his gut wrench. There was something wrong here.

"Come check it out." Sheldon said, walking away from Leonard's door to the main room of their apartment, with Leonard following him. "On a whim, I decided to research our route and destination to Storybrooke, Maine from Bangor International Airport, which was prominently featured in Stephen King's The Langoliers," Sheldon added, smiling as he indicated the laptop on the table. "Just to make sure our GPS navigation would send us along the best routes and we could find points of interest along the way, etcetera. But when I looked up Storybrooke, Maine…well, it doesn't show up on any maps of any kind."

"It doesn't exist?" Leonard asked, stunned as he checked it out for himself. There was absolutely no point on any map that showed the location of Storybrooke, Maine. "The kid lied to us." Leonard whispered, shaking his head.

"Not necessarily." Sheldon added. "I did a general web search, and came up with a bunch of hits on the conspiracy surrounding the mysterious, hidden town known as Storybrooke, Maine."

"An urban legend?" Leonard asked.

"There is a location here along the northern coast, in Washington County, third-least densely populated county in that state," Sheldon added, "which is supposed to be all forest and rocky coast, uninhabited wilderness. But reportedly, it is the location of Storybrooke, Maine according to at least a dozen eyewitness reports dating all the way back to 1986, almost 28 years ago to the day of Penny's birth."

"Huh?" Leonard said.

"I know, it just sounded peculiar to me." Sheldon said with a shrug. "The oldest report is from Owen Flynn, a ten-year-old at the time who reportedly went camping with his father soon after the death of his mother and, overnight, a town sprang up just a mile or so away from their camping site, Storybrooke." Sheldon said, clicking on a link to what appeared to be a police report. "He describes the experience as horrifying and mysterious. He was targeted by the mayor, a Regina Mills, who wanted to trap him and his father."

"Mills…Henry's got the same last name." Leonard remarked.

"Interesting, is it not? Owen managed to get away, but his father was arrested and taken away, never to be seen again." Sheldon made an ooooing spooky noise. "Owen contacted the police, and they tried to locate the town, but it wasn't there."

"Sounds like something out of a Stephen King novel." Leonard managed to say, still doubtful.

* * *

"I know! So guess who I called?" Sheldon asked, smiling as he clicked a link, and suddenly a Skype call with Stephen King appeared on the screen. The famous author was drooping, half-asleep and bored with his hand supporting his face.

"Sheldon!" Leonard cried, stunned. "How did you—? You do not call Stephen King in the middle of the night!"

"It's okay. I couldn't sleep." Stephen King managed to say, rolling his eyes. "And it's 7 in the morning over here. Sheldon just woke me up with a bunch of questions about Storybrooke, Maine." He leaned forward. "I've heard about the place before and I even thought about writing a story or two set in Storybrooke, Maine or someplace like it when I was going through a bit of a dry spell. It really does fascinate and interest me, though, the sort of mysterious goings-on that could be happening right beneath our noses without us ever knowing. We don't even know what's happening in our backyards sometimes, or just down the street. It's even more peculiar and terrifying than some of the monsters our minds can come up with." He inhaled. "You know, I always used to say…"

"Mr. Stephen King, much as I appreciate your conversations on writing and storytelling, could we please stick to the topic at hand?" Sheldon asked. "Tell Leonard here about Storybrooke, Maine."

"Right." Stephen King said, muttering, "Almost worse than the accident…anyway." He then launched into an explanation and edification of the rumors and stories surrounding Storybrooke, Maine. Leonard leaned upon his every word, stunned by this encounter, and found himself paying close attention to everything the man had to say. "And that's it." Stephen King said about thirty minutes later, obviously exhausted.

"Thank you very much, Mr. King. And I apologize for my roommate's rude behavior." Leonard said, glaring at Sheldon.

"Think nothing of it. Just fodder for my next novel." Stephen King said, smiling. "Pleasant dreams." He exited the call.

"I ought to get a cut of the royalty if he writes something based on me." Sheldon whined.

"Sheldon, please." Leonard said, turning around to face him. "Is that it?"

"Hmm. I'm thinking of looking into NASA satellite surveillance of Washington County, in the general vicinity of where Storybrooke, Maine should be located, with radiation, infrared, and electronic signal surveillance as well. I'm also going to look into contacting Greg Mendell, the alias that Owen Flynn changed his name to when people made fun of him too much, and getting more information out of him and others who may have encountered Storybrooke, Maine. That's it." Sheldon said.

"Good night, then." Leonard said, getting up and tromping back to bed.

"Good night." Sheldon said, sitting back down to stare at the laptop screen with his fingers flashing across the keyboard.

* * *

"Ow, oh…" Howard groaned as he woke up around that time.

"Howie, is everything okay?" Bernadette muttered from the other side of the bed.

"Just a leg cramp, dear." Howard said.

"Drink plenty of water and go back to sleep." Bernadette muttered.

"Right, I will. I'm just going to stretch it out a moment." Howard said, getting up and sneaking out of the bedroom.

He glanced at his phone and noticed he had received about a dozen text messages from Sheldon in the last hour or so. Curious, he checked them out and his eyes widened. "No way…" He said, frowning to himself. He decided to investigate as well. Soon, Raj and Amy also woke up and found the text messages and within hours, almost everyone in the group knew about the mystery surrounding Storybrooke, Maine.

"What do you think it means?" Bernadette asked when Howard apprised her of the situation later.

"I think we're really going to have to talk about this trip." Howard remarked.

In the late morning hours, Leonard woke up and trooped out into the main room to find Sheldon asleep at his laptop. He shook his head and quietly made up his morning coffee so as not to disturb him. He checked his texts and nodded to himself, seeing an explosion of them from almost all of his friends about the Storybrooke bombshell. It was pretty big news, after all, more exciting and mysterious than anything else they had encountered recently.

Penny was absent, though, from the discussion. Apparently she didn't know yet about what was going on. He sighed to himself and shook his head, wondering what she was going to think or how she was going to react when she heard about this. But he decided not to disturb her right now, in case she and the kid Henry were still asleep. Henry, that boy really did puzzle him. If Storybrooke wasn't real, then where did he come from? But in any case, he replied to some of the texts requesting a meeting at Sheldon's and Leonard's apartment in the affirmative, knowing that they would be up for it. Sheldon would have a few more minutes of sleep, though, as Leonard sipped his coffee.

* * *

Penny woke up that morning, a little groggy and confused as to why she was sleeping on the couch, but then she remembered about Henry last night. She sighed to herself, wondering how she and the others would cope with this mess she had made of her life. But then again, she was almost happy at the thought of Henry being here.

She couldn't explain it and she wasn't used to the idea yet, but she wondered if, things being different, and if she was different, she might have been an okay mom for the kid. Maybe not perfect, definitely not perfect, but if she could have gotten her act straightened out a lot sooner…she shook her head. No, it was best for the kid to take him back home, to the parents and family who could care for him the way he deserved to be taken care of. Yeah, that's right.

She sighed and got up, heading into the kitchen as she decided to whip them up a batch of pancakes, if she could find the right ingredients…luckily, for once, she had them. The kid woke up soon and smiled at her, which sort of lit up her world, for some reason. "Hey, Henry. How do you like pancakes?" She asked.

"Great. They would be awesome if you could get some marshmallows in them." He said, racing over to the kitchen table.

"Marshmallows?" She said. "Sorry, kid, I haven't cooked any like that. But I think I have a bag of marshmallows somewhere if you want to dump a bunch of them on top."

"Cool, thanks." He said, nodding as Penny served them breakfast, not exactly nutritious, especially with marshmallows, but it was pretty good.

As they finished up, Penny checked her texts on her phone and her eyes widened. "Henry?" She said, glancing at the kid.

"Yeah?" He said.

"Does Storybrooke, Maine exist?" She asked, shocking Henry.

"Um, yes and no." Henry said, fidgeting.

"What do you mean by that?" She asked.

"It's not real in that it's not supposed to exist, but it does exist." He added. "I do live there. I'm not supposed to be there, but I am."

"We need to have a serious talk about this." Penny said. "We're going across the hall as soon as we get dressed and such. Apparently they have a meeting set up and everything. Finish up your pancake." She told him.

* * *

About thirty minutes later, Henry and Penny entered Leonard and Sheldon's apartment with everyone from last night gathered together again. Sheldon finally woke up as everyone shared and confirmed their findings with Henry and Penny, who were pretty much silent throughout, listening to what everybody else had to say. Henry fidgeted and squirmed, though, intrigued by what they could or could not discover about his hometown, and even he learned some new things about the mystery and theories surrounding the place. He bit his tongue when he wanted to talk so much about his own theories and ideas of what Storybrooke, Maine was, but he knew that he couldn't share until he heard what they had to say.

"I have something new to say." Sheldon said. "I hacked into satellite surveillance and apparently, there are trace signals of what could be a town in the spot where Storybrooke is said to be." He showed them the images, pointing out the infrared, electronic signals, and background radiation as the others gathered around him and his computer, Henry craning his neck to look.

"And there are some interesting signals as well, which do not appear to be your average, ordinary, run-of-the-mill signals either. They are almost alien or otherworldly." Sheldon said. "I shared my findings with Greg Mendell and his group. They are a fascinating bunch of people, absolutely captivated by the stories surrounding Storybrooke, but they have some outlandish theories of what this place is, involving magic and witchcraft." Sheldon scoffed. "Preposterous."

For some reason, the hairs on the back of Leonard's neck stood up and he shuddered.

"I believe them." Henry said and the others turned around to stare at the boy. "My mother Regina Mills is the evil Queen from Snow White who cast a curse over the storybook inhabitants of the Enchanted Forest and transported them to this world without magic."

"Oh, Henry." Penny gasped, covering her mouth as she wondered what was wrong with the boy, what sort of cultish delusion he was suffering from. Almost everyone else glanced at each other, thinking the same thing.

"Fascinating." Sheldon said, staring at the boy. "I must know more." That shocked his friends.

* * *

Duh-duh-duh! Yeah, I know. Though such a theory may be outlandish, a curious mind like Sheldon's is bound to want to know more. Stay tuned.


	3. The Fairy Tale Theory

I may have made a mistake in writing the last chapter, or at least I feel like I left some things out of it, like the reactions of the other characters to some of the events, and so I have decided to shift some of my focus here to the past sequence. I'm writing this story a bit piecemeal, a habit I've developed recently with my novel writing to get a quicker turnout and write whatever I feel like writing at any point in the story, beginning, middle, or end. But usually, after I finish a fanfiction chapter of story, I post it straightaway before working on the next chapter. Sitting down and writing/typing the whole fanfiction story from beginning to end without posting seems odd and takes up more time, so...if there are more linear jumps than one might usually expect, I apologize, and hope that we can keep things straight enough. Okay, here we go.

* * *

"Wow. A secret town hidden from the rest of the world..sounds like a thriller." Howard said, grinning when Sheldon revealed the existence of Storybrooke.

"Almost impossible." Raj added.

"At least it's real." Penny muttered, as she had been concerned that Henry might have lied to them about where he came from, leading them in the wrong direction to the middle of nowhere to return him back home. She didn't want to lose him just yet, so soon after she had gotten him back, but she needed to make sure that Henry would be fine and that she and the others wouldn't get into trouble, so she had to return him home. It was the best thing to do.

"What are we dealing with here?" Bernadette asked, concerned when all of this seemed very suspicious and mysterious to her. She didn't like the idea of herself, Howie, and the rest of their friends getting involved in something that could be dangerous when they didn't know anything, and this Storybrooke, Maine was definitely threatening.

"I think it could be government-related." Amy remarked after some consideration. "The level of technology required to conceal a place like this from almost all outside observers would have to be really advanced, very secretive, and very expensive at this point, and that doesn't even guarantee success. I think we should find out what is going on here."

"It's not government-related." Henry groaned, wondering if people even listened to him.

"Well, I'm not going, and neither should you, Howard." Bernadette snapped.

"Chicken." Amy muttered to herself, never really liking Bernadette.

"What? Why not?" Howard asked his wife, shocked. "Ah, come on, you can't deny me this. For the first time ever, I get the chance to explore a mystery that no one has ever resolved with my best friends. Can't we at least find out together?" He asked.

"I'm not interested and we shouldn't get involved." Bernadette said, shaking her head. "We could get killed, or captured by whoever is in charge of this place. We don't know what they are hiding. It might not even be a town for all we know, but some kind of secret base."

"It's a town, it's Storybrooke." Henry told her, although he was worried now that Bernadette might be more right than even she knew.

If his mom Regina really was bad, as bad as she had been in the Enchanted Forest…he didn't know for sure what would happen to these people if they came to Storybrooke. He knew his mother Penny would be all right, she had to be because she was the savior and the hero always survived. Nothing bad could happen to her, but with all of these people…he knew that a lot of bad things happened in stories, and usually it happened to the people around the hero. They really would be risking their lives if they came to Storybrooke.

"We only have your word for it, and we barely even know you! How can we trust you?" Bernadette cried at Henry, causing him to flinch at the painful reminder.

"Hey, lay off the kid." Penny told her. "It's not his fault."

"Sorry." Bernadette muttered, not wanting to upset Penny, though she still remained suspicious of Henry.

"Well, I am going, and you can't stop me!" Howard cried. "I'm going to support my friends, just as you should."

"Want to bet?" Bernadette asked, already thinking of ways to convince Howard not to go.

"Aliens." Raj said when Sheldon mentioned alien, otherworldy signals. "Oh, that would be so cool and neat." In a deep voice, he said, "I am your new commander. Take me to your leader so that I may destroy him!"

"Yes, Lord Overlord." Howard said and giggled along with Raj as Bernadette glowered at them.

"No. We are not discussing this." Penny said when Sheldon seemed to accept Henry's fairy tale theory.

"Oh, come on, let's hear what he has to say." Sheldon said, grinning.

"This is not a good idea." Amy added.

"I think it's a great idea!" Sheldon exclaimed.

"Don't I get a say in this?" Henry asked.

"Of course you do." Sheldon said, glaring at the others before they slowly nodded in reluctant agreement.

* * *

Henry had been feeling nervous about sharing his theory when everything was going so well between him, his birth mom, and all of her friends. (He still wasn't sure what to think of her mom's boyfriend Leonard, but he seemed like a nice enough guy.) Sheldon was the strangest one in the group, but Henry figured out how to handle him well enough early on. This whole trip from Storybrooke to Los Angeles had been a strange one and several times, Henry had been worried that he might be caught as a runaway, but he had managed to survive the trip and make it all the way over here.

He had been nervous when confronting his birth mother the first time, figuring that she would have a negative reaction, but he had not expected to meet so many of her friends on that night as well. It had been sort of nice, getting to know the group and the family that he might become involved with, although that had sort of been disrupted. And now…he wasn't ready to share his theory yet, when he was trying to get to know his birth mother better and spend some quality time with her before they got back to his home. But now that they had discovered the mystery surrounding Storybrooke, Maine, which he had not really known about from an outside perspective, he had to let them know the truth about what they were getting into here before it was too late.

Henry got out his Once Upon A Time storybook and a photo album as he explained his theory to Sheldon, who listened attentively and nodded as he examined the photo album and the pictures in the storybook in turn. Henry had gotten into the habit of taking pictures of every inhabitant of Storybrooke that he could to support his theory that they all resembled the illustrations of characters in his storybook. The rest of the group, however, stood around and distractedly listened, fidgeting and grimacing amongst each other as they silently shared the same consternation.

Henry hoped it was a good sign that at least Sheldon was interested in his idea, although the rest of the group didn't seem so inclined to believe him and Sheldon was the last person Henry would have wanted on his side. He wondered if he had done the wrong thing in coming here and exposing himself like this, but no, it was necessary. He just had to help everybody, Mary-Margaret and Archie and Leroy and Marco and Ruby, he just had to help them remember who they truly were. And the only one who could save them was his mom, Penny Emma Swan.

* * *

Sheldon noticed a passing resemblance between some of the Storybrooke inhabitants and the illustrated characters, which he did find curious and worth exploring, but for now, he was more interested in the pictures of Storybrooke and its inhabitants than anything else. "Now tell me, who are all of these people?" Sheldon asked Henry.

"I can't stand it." Penny muttered, stumbling out of the apartment.

"Mom?" Henry asked, turning around as he watched her go.

"Penny?" Leonard said at about the same time, causing both Henry and Leonard to glance at each other.

"Don't worry, she'll be all right." Sheldon said, flipping through the album. "Now, Henry, where were we?" Henry sighed and went over to him.

"I'll go after her." Bernadette said, getting up to follow.

"Me, too." Amy added, not wanting Bernadette to get too much alone time with her best friend.

"Me three! Wait up, girls!" Raj cried, hurrying after them when he was starting to get bored of sitting around here moping and whining along with the others. He wanted to have fun, and usually he had fun with the other girls.

"Should I stay or should I go after them?" Howard asked.

"Do you really want to hang out with Raj and the girls?" Leonard asked him.

"It would be better than here, would it not?" Howard asked. After a moment of thought, he sighed. "No, forget it. Although any place would be better than here." He muttered.

"Let's get out some games." Leonard muttered. "It's going to be a long day."

* * *

"Penny, wait!" Bernadette cried as she, Amy, and Raj caught up with her on the stairs. "What's going on?"

Penny sighed. "I'm sorry, I should not have run off like that, especially leaving Henry alone with Sheldon." She grimaced. "It's insane, is it not, to believe in such fairy tale stories? How can Henry still believe that? He's ten years old, he's old enough by now to know better."

"Maybe the kid's had a hard time, you know, being…" Raj hesitated to say it, and continued. "Maybe he just wanted to find some comfort somewhere, a better life, and those stories seemed like just the thing for him. We've all had that moment, you know, when we wanted to find comfort somewhere that we couldn't find close at home. And so we turned to…well, personally, I turned toward the stars, and the science fiction stories and movies set in space." Raj said, smiling before he continued. "This is the same. He probably doesn't believe seriously, in his heart of hearts, that the stories are true. He just wants them to be true. He'll be okay, though, he'll get over it."

"I suppose." Penny said. "But why would Sheldon humor him? Just to be cruel?"

"I know it isn't fair and it isn't right for Henry, but Sheldon should have a reason for it." Amy added. "He doesn't do such things deliberately to be cruel. He has a reason for everything he does and everything he thinks, much as it annoys me when what he does and what he thinks isn't always what I want. But that's the way he is."

"Hmm. You're right, I guess. Well, ask him for me, will you? I would like to know the reason for it." Penny said, heading downstairs. "It seems cruel to deny Henry the truth and not help him face reality."

"Aren't you coming back up?" Bernadette asked.

Penny hesitated, glancing at the others. "I just…I want to be with Henry, I do. I want to help him and be there for him, like I haven't been for the past ten years, but I don't know if I can face him right now." She groaned. "It's just so overwhelming, all of this. The responsibility of taking care of him when he is in such a deplorable state…I don't want that." Penny said. "I want to run away and hide, just for a few hours at least, until I feel like I can face him again." She sighed. "I want to get drunk."

"Can I come, too?" Raj asked, with Amy and Bernadette chiming in as well.

"Thanks, guys." Penny said, and they all continued heading downstairs to leave. "Maybe I did the wrong thing in the first place, giving Henry up for adoption, if this was how he would wind up, on the brink of insanity with such a delusion." Penny added. Was this my fault?"

"No!" The others said as they continued chatting.

* * *

Meanwhile, Howard and Leonard stayed behind to basically babysit Henry and Sheldon whilst playing video games, not certain if they wanted to listen to everything that Henry and Sheldon were discussing.

Henry named all of the individuals in the photo album and Sheldon mentally filed their names away, as he recalled that Greg Mendell had, in fact, named several people in his description of Storybrooke. Some of the names Henry provided were the exact same ones that Greg Mendell had provided, which seemed like an odd, improbable coincidence. It was unlikely that Henry knew the details about Greg Mendell's story, if he was lying to collaborate with the story, and so if these were the correct names for these people, then these people either passed on their names to another or never aged in 28 years.

"Henry, I would like to run a test." Sheldon said. "Is it all right if I borrow your photos for just a moment? I would like to scan them and send them to someone."

Henry hesitated, not certain if he wanted to share the photos with a stranger if Storybrooke's secret might be spoiled in the wrong way, but finally he said, "All right, I suppose. Just don't tell them too much, all right?"

"Don't worry, I won't even name the people in these photos or say where they are from." Sheldon told him, taking the photo album.

If Henry's theory and the stories about Storybrooke were correct, then Greg Mendell would instantly recognize and name all of these people, declaring that they were from Storybrooke. Of course, Greg Mendell might still do that if he was suffering from an obsessive delusion and would say anything to validate his point, but the chances that he would correctly name all of the people in Henry's photos, as Henry had named them, seemed unlikely unless Greg Mendell knew who they all were. And if Greg Mendell recognized them all these years later, with half of them appearing to be not much older than 28 yet, then it seemed quite likely that they had not aged a day in all of that time. Which would give Sheldon some pause to seriously consider the possibility of a fairy tale town, or at least the possibility of an anti-aging scientific experiment.

* * *

Finally, more out of boredom than curiosity, especially when his character had just gotten killed in the game, Leonard craned his head around as Sheldon finished scanning the photos.

"Can I see them?" Leonard asked.

He thought he might as well take an interest in this whole affair if it would help Henry. It probably wasn't good for the kid to spend so much time discussing his ideas with Sheldon when Henry might take them even more seriously then, worsening his delusion. Plus, Penny might look on Leonard more favorable then, with the possibility that he might become…Henry's stepfather or something like that, if he helped Henry overcome these problems. Stepfather really did sound strange to him.

"Sure." Henry said, handing Leonard the photo album. Leonard opened it up and flipped through the pages, studying the photos every now and again, especially whenever he glimpsed aspects of a town that seemed to be real enough to support Henry's delusion. Howard had stopped playing and craned his neck over to examine the photos as well.

"Who is this guy?" Howard asked, pointing at an old man in a mechanic's uniform.

"That's Marco, the local handyman, but I believe he is Gepetto from Pinocchio, who made the puppet and wished that he could turn into a real boy when he didn't have any children." Henry said. "Marco, of course, doesn't have any children here in Storybrooke, because Pinocchio doesn't exist here."

"Huh. Weird." Howard said, going back to his game.

Leonard turned another page and frowned. "That man…who is he?" He asked, feeling a tingling sensation as he stared at the photo.

"Oh, that's Mr. Gold, the local pawnbroker, but he also owns half of the town." Henry remarked, seeing what Leonard was looking at. "Everyone hates him, either because he collects rent from them or takes away their most prized possessions whenever they need money from him." Henry frowned. "I don't what storybook character he is, but I bet he's pretty nasty."

"Mr. Gold…" Sheldon muttered before he grabbed Henry's storybook and flipped through the pages. He got up from his laptop and came over to look at Mr. Gold's photo and then at the illustration. "Oh, it's so obvious." Sheldon said, smiling. "Mr. Gold is Rumplestiltskin, the devilish deal-maker who spins straw into gold, in exchange for which he would acquire your first-born child. You know, I would like to meet him, see if I can't match wits with him." Sheldon chuckled.

Leonard paled. "Excuse me for a minute," He said, handing Henry the photo album before he got up and rushed to the bathroom. He threw up in the toilet and gasped, his heart beating a mile a minute as he stared at his reflection in the mirror. "No, no, it can't be…" He said, turning on the faucet and splashing water in his face. "It's not true, it's not true. How can it be true?" He asked himself, his wet face in the mirror. "It's just a nightmare." He said. He still couldn't help shake that feeling, though, that something was wrong here.

* * *

"I still think you're wrong to humor Henry on his fairy-tale theory." Amy told Sheldon later that evening over video chat.

"Why not? I think it's a great idea." Sheldon said. "I know it's impossible for them to be storybook characters, but Henry needs to be encouraged to at least question his surroundings and come up with his own theories and ideas. He has the makings of a scientist in him in that regard, although we should help him reach his own conclusions and realize the truth regarding the townspeople and town of Storybrooke, Maine. This is his theory, after all. Besides, I'm intrigued by the concept of this storybook having illustrated characters resembling these people. That, at least, is not a coincidence." Sheldon remarked, studying the book.

"What do you mean?" Amy asked.

"Whoever created this storybook put a lot of craftsmanship into it, not just writing or illustration. I think it's even hand-bound, very old-fashioned and antiquated, but the material itself appears to be relatively new, not even a decade old. It's just distressed and designed to look old, like those pair of jeans you tried to talk me into buying once." Sheldon said.

"I still think you would have looked good in them." Amy said.

"Be that as it may," Sheldon said, not wanting to discuss the issue right now, "With that amount of work and detail devoted to it, and all of the decisions the creator must have made in the task, I think it's quite deliberate. They wanted people to believe that these stories and characters were real enough that they could be identified with the townspeople of Storybrooke, Maine." Sheldon nodded to himself. "Yes, even though they might not be fictional characters, their lives have been fictionalized. I believe the residents of Storybrooke, Maine have been incorporated into this story."

Amy frowned. "If you look at it that way, as a satire or metaphor, I suppose it might be possible, but Henry still believes that the characters and stories themselves are real and factual. He doesn't understand the concept, that blurring of the line between fiction and reality."

"We'll help him understand, then." Sheldon said. "Think of this as a teaching exercise in developing his mental faculties, logical deduction and reasoning with scientific theory and creative comprehension. If the characters are a reflection of the people in Storybrooke, Maine as the creator intended, then we'll find that out and get to the bottom of the real story in Storybrooke." He smiled.


	4. The Storybrooke Sign

I know the Big Bang Theory segment is pretty long-I've barely managed to include Storybrooke in this chapter-but we are finally getting there. It just takes some time.

* * *

In spite of all the drama, heartache, and drinking, the group still managed to book their tickets/car rentals, pack their bags, board Cinnamon, (with a heartfelt farewell from Raj, though he enjoyed seeing Yvette again) and call their employers to ask for time off so that just a couple of days after Henry had arrived, they were at LAX waiting to board the plane to Bangor International Airport. They got probed in security, though, for purchasing tickets so soon before the flight and because Bernadette, Penny, and Amy had been on the No-Fly list before their restriction was wavered. (They had been very excited about going to Vegas.)

In preparation for their nine hour flight, they walked and stood around the terminal and gate, knowing they were going to be sitting for a very long time. Howard was still stiff and sore, the leg cramp from the other night seemed to have spread, but he managed to hide his discomfort as best he could, swallowing some ibuprofen in the bathroom. He was also mulling over what his wife had said last night.

"Howard? Howie?" Bernadette mumbled.

"What?" Howard asked.

"Have you ever thought…I don't know why I haven't thought about it before, but Penny's fiasco with Henry made me wonder…should we consider adoption? Or fostering a child?"

"What?" Howard asked, staring at Bernadette. "I thought you didn't like or want children."

"I do sort of have my reservations about the whole thing. Children can be a pain at times." Bernadette frowned, but then softened. "But the idea of a kid like Henry being out there alone without a mother or father of his own, abandoned…it almost made me want one of my own. We could try it for a while, could we not?" She asked. "Foster a kid for a while, see what that is like, and then consider adoption?"

"It's not…I don't know. I might be willing to consider it." Howard said. "But we have to think about this, Bernadette. We really have to consider what we are getting into here."

"Okay. Good night." Bernadette said, going to sleep. She hadn't said anything about it since last night, maybe she had forgotten about it, but Howard wondered if it was something they should try. The idea of it…a child of their own. Hopefully, Bernadette might still be willing.

Meanwhile, Sheldon stood at one of the platform tables with electrical outlets for laptop usage, reading a message on a forum page with his mouth dropped open as Leonard passed by.

"Is something the matter, Sheldon?" Leonard asked.

"No, not really." Sheldon said, closing his laptop. He wasn't lying. He might have been fibbing or telling a half-truth, but…okay, it could be a lie. But he wasn't going to admit it.

Sheldon had posted up all of Henry's pictures of Storybrooke residents without their names posted on Greg Mendell/Owen Flynn's website, and Greg/Owen had responded—he had named all of the Storybrooke residents correctly and then asked, 'Where did these pictures come from? Do you have access to Storybrooke? Can we schedule a meeting sometime next week? I'll be in Maine then. I'll be right there by Storybrooke's border, waiting. Please, I need your help to get through and find someone who can make things better. You are my only hope.'

Sheldon wasn't certain what Owen was talking about, probably related to one of his delusions, but he was worried about Greg/Owen stalking them into Storybrooke and hacking them up like the madman that he was. And then Sheldon would get blamed for bringing him here. One of the problems of internet communication, you didn't know who you were talking to, or was it a bonus because Sheldon had at least managed to hide his identity from the other fellow under a false name and a false IP address? At least Owen/Greg wouldn't know who he was, what he looked like, or where he came from, if Sheldon never showed up at their meeting, to track and target him specifically. That was some form of relief, though it was pretty minimal.

And so Sheldon was back to wondering what in the world Storybrooke was, if Greg/Owen had really met all these people there 28 years ago, unchanged…he had to find out. Leonard frowned, thinking that something was fishy with Sheldon, but then he spotted Penny and Henry heading towards one of the airport souvenir shops. He decided to head after them instead of questioning his friend more closely.

* * *

With Sheldon, Henry, Penny and Leonard thus occupied, Amy privately told the others Sheldon's reason for supporting Henry's belief, the fact that the storybook was designed to look like Storybrook residents and that encouraging his critical thinking skills might lead him to realize the truth.

"So the book's a joke?" Howard scoffed, wincing slightly. "That's a pretty elaborate joke if I do say so myself."

"You've created some crazy things in the past, all for the sake of a stupid stunt or joke." Raj commented.

"What sort of things?" Bernadette asked, frowning. She always wanted to know what her husband had been up to with his friends before she had ever met him. She had gotten bits and pieces of his past experiences out of him, mostly by force or cajoling, and what she had heard wasn't always good or complimentary of her husband.

"You wouldn't want to know." Howard remarked, shaking his head. "But it wasn't like I was trying to delude the mind of a poor child into believing something that wasn't real."

"What about Sheldon? Does that count?" Raj asked.

Howard smirked, but with both Bernadette and Amy eying him, he said, "Not really. In any case, I certainly had a better sense of humor than whoever wrote and designed the dang book." Howard said. "It's a nightmare full of horrible, terrible things happening to its characters, and guess what? They don't always get a happy ending. It's not Disney."

"Disney is not the only creator of fairy-tales, you know." Amy remarked. "Those stories are old, hundreds if not thousands of years old, in some cases. Apparently, the ancient Egyptians had their own version of Cinderella."

"Don't forget India." Raj added. "We have a bunch of fairy tales and stories of our own. And all of the myths and legends, not just from my own culture, but from around the world like the Greeks, Romans, and Vikings!" Raj and Howard whooped and slapped hands, confusing Bernadette. "Every culture has its own stories." Raj said.

"Yep. And they had plenty of dark elements in them." Amy said. "Most of them could correctly be called proto-horror stories. They were designed to shock and entertain adults as well as children."

"Not exactly good for the kids, though." Bernadette remarked.

"But they were cautionary moral tales as well, you might say." Amy added. "They were all the rage back in the day when people actually believed in the monsters and witches or gods and goddesses they were talking about, or at least understood that the world was a far darker place than might be easily understood."

"Oh, science, how I love you for dispelling the myths and evils of the ancient world!" Howard declaimed, causing the others to smile.

* * *

On board the plane, Henry and Sheldon discussed Stephen King and comic books as well as Henry's fairy tale theory, which intrigued Raj, Amy, and Bernadette enough, especially when they were bored and had missed Henry's explanation the other night, to read his Once Upon A Time book. They passed the book around amongst the group and glanced through the stories, interested in the changes that had been made in the familiar tales as they politely asked Henry about his theory concerning the Storybrooke residents' relationships to the story. Eventually, though, they passed the book back to Henry and slept for a little while.

After a long flight, they arrived in Maine in the early evening, grabbed their luggage (bags and bags worth) and picked up their two cars, one with Leonard and Penny in the front and Sheldon and Henry in the back, while the other had Howard and Bernadette in the front and Amy and Raj in the back. Amy moped about not sharing the same car as Sheldon.

"He's been spending almost all of his time with Henry ever since the kid came." Amy remarked. "We've hardly spoken to each other in all this time. He was sitting next to Henry on the plane as well. Shouldn't Sheldon at least be considerate enough of our relationship agreement to spend some time with me?"

"Well, at least I don't have to put up with him." Howard muttered.

"Howard." Bernadette warned.

"Yeah." Raj added, nodding in agreement to Amy's statement. "Boyfriends and girlfriends should spend some time together. That's what a relationship is all about. And Sheldon shouldn't hog Henry. What if one of us wanted to hang out with Henry or whatever?"

"I don't know." Howard shrugged and asked, "Don't you think that would be sort of strange and creepy?"

"And Sheldon hanging out with Henry isn't strange and creepy?" Raj asked.

"Well, he's more like a kid himself. Amy can attest to that, right?" Howard asked.

Amy sighed. "Yeah, right."

"Howard, please." Bernadette said before turning back to Amy. "Well, maybe it's a good thing that he spends so much time with Henry. It might show that he's great with kids, or at least a kid like Henry. Perhaps someday, he might be a father." Howard and Raj laughed.

"Someday will never come at this rate." Amy grumbled. "And the only reason why he is interested in Henry is because he sees Henry as an experiment or a test of sorts. He wants to know the truth about Storybrooke and get Henry interested in scientific curiosity and exploration. Not exactly the noblest of intentions."

"True, but who hasn't experimented on their friends or family members just to see how they would react and examine-?" Bernadette started to say and then stopped as she realized she was saying too much.

"Scientific curiosity and exploration…does that sound gross?" Howard asked.

"Nothing like child exploitation and endangerment." Raj remarked.

"I'm stuck with a bunch of juvenile delinquents and perverts!" Amy groaned.

* * *

"The moment of truth has arrived." Sheldon said in the backseat as Leonard drove his rental car along a back country highway, the Wolowitz car behind them. "If all of the figures and triangulations are correct, then in just a mile or two, we should pass over the town limits border for Storybrooke, Maine." Sheldon grinned. "Oh boy, oh boy, I can't wait."

"I don't see anything out here." Leonard muttered. "No lights, no sign of any town close by. It's not on the maps, yet the NASA satellite information shows that it does exist. If they have hidden the place, even from visible sight, they have done it pretty well."

"I know, isn't it exciting?" Sheldon asked, grinning. "Never underestimate the power of government scientists when it comes to hiding secrets. But never underestimate the prowess of Dr. Sheldon Cooper at breaking those selfsame secrets!" He exclaimed. "This government research base, scientific installation, or secret headquarters won't know what hit it when we, or should I say I, arrive there! Bazinga!" He laughed like a mad scientist.

"Well, if we can't find it, then I suppose we will have to stop at the closest town and find the police." Penny said, glancing at the boy asleep in the backseat. "Henry has to go back home, no matter what. I can't keep him forever, not like this."

"Perhaps we can." Leonard said, turning to her. "I mean, there's bound to be some legal process where the birth mother can reclaim her child, right?"

"I suppose so, but what if I'm not found fit enough to be Henry's mother?" Penny asked. "I don't want to raise Henry's hopes up that he might be able to stay with me before dashing those hopes to the ground and ripping them to pieces. I want Henry to be happy, wherever he goes, but I'm worried that he won't be happy with me."

Leonard opened his mouth, but suddenly he felt a sickening, whooshing feeling, and the car skidded on the road a little bit before he slowed it down and pulled it over to the side. Howard pulled over his own car a few feet farther away.

"Leonard! What's the matter with you?" Sheldon cried, with Leonard leaning over the steering wheel, a full-blown panic attack coming with Penny trying to comfort him as Henry woke up in the backseat. "Are you trying to give me a heart attack?" Sheldon asked.

"What's going on? What happened?" Henry asked.

"Sheldon, he's not trying to upset you!" Penny said. "Can't you see he's the one who…oh, never mind." She turned away and soothed the others. "Don't worry, Leonard, it's going to be all right. You, too, Henry. Leonard's just had a minor episode. We'll be back on the road soon. Do you want me to drive?" Penny asked Leonard. Leonard slowly nodded and managed to pry himself from the wheel, gasping for breath as he opened the car door and stumbled out, coughing.

"Hey!" Howard called out, waving and limping as he approached Leonard and Penny exiting their vehicles to switch drivers. "Look!" He cried. "Look at the sign! And look at the town!" He pointed in the distance.

Penny and Leonard turned around and looked at the 'Leaving Storybrooke' sign before they turned back and spotted the dim lights of a town beyond the trees. "I don't remember us passing that sign…" Penny said.

"Oh, gods, it's real." Leonard said.

"Well, we're home." Henry whispered to himself inside the car, shuddering.

"Don't you mean god singular, not plural?" Sheldon asked Leonard, sticking his head out from the car. "Get your grammar straight." He shook his head. "Never was very good at grammar in school, according to his mother." He remarked to Henry.

"His mother?" Henry asked.

"Dr. Beverly Hofstader, the genius leading expert in child psychiatry and psychology." Sheldon remarked, smiling. "A brilliant scientist, if I do say so myself. Her theories and methods are fascinating. We keep in touch quite often, she tells me everything and we discuss. Leonard finds it annoying. Apparently he doesn't get as much out of his mother-son relationship as he wants to, but in 'Needy Baby, Greedy Baby', one of Beverly's books, she said-"

"Okay, okay," Henry said, staring at Leonard throwing up on the side of the road. "No wonder he's such a mess."

* * *

Once Leonard had recovered, with Penny in the driver's seat of their car, they all continued on down the road to Storybrooke, which seemed to be the dead-end for this stretch of road. They marveled at the town that had appeared out of nowhere, or at least had been very well concealed until they were on top of it, and Henry gave Penny directions to the mayor's mansion.

She parked the car and stared at the large house. "Wow. For an…evil queen, she has done well for herself." Penny managed to say, recalling Henry's fairy tale belief, and slightly intimidated.

"Evil queens generally do." Sheldon added. "One of the benefits of being unscrupulous with how you get your wealth."

"Hey, don't worry about it." Leonard weakly said, patting Penny on the arm. "You're going to do great. Just go up there, say you're sorry about what happened, and ask about keeping in touch with Henry. We'll be right there with you."

"Right." Penny said, nodding, and they all got out of the car, Leonard still a little unsteady on his feet, and the same happened with the Wolowitz car, though Howard limped instead of staggered. They went up and rang the doorbell to be greeted by Regina and Sheriff Graham.

"Hi, Mom!" Henry said, smiling as he hugged Regina.

"Henry!" Regina Mills cried, hugging her adopted son in relief as Sheriff Graham stood behind her in disbelief, staring at the boy and his mother and at all of the people gathered together outside of the house.

"Who are all of you?" Graham asked as Regina looked up at the largest crowd of strangers and outsiders she had seen yet in Storybrooke.

"My name is Penny Swan, and I'm Henry's birth mother." Penny managed to say, shocking the queen. "This is my boyfriend and friends." Leonard still looked pretty bad, but the others smiled and waved as best they could, trying to appear normal. The queen glared at them. "Henry came out to California to find me, but we've returned him back home."

"California!" Regina asked, staring down at the boy. "Henry, how did you get so far away?"

"It was a little tough, but I managed it." Henry told her. "I had stolen my teacher's credit card."

"Kid, that isn't exactly something you want to confess in front of a sheriff." Graham remarked, upsetting Henry and amusing Penny.

"Mary-Margaret." Regina grimaced, which Sheldon noticed and mentally noted, 'interesting', recalling the feud between Snow White/Mary-Margaret and Regina/Evil Queen in Henry's book. "I'm going to have a word with her." The queen said.

"It's not her fault." Henry said. "She didn't know. I was sneaky about it."

"He may be telling the truth." Graham said.

"We're sorry that we couldn't get him back home sooner, but we had to make travel arrangements." Penny said.

"Travel arrangements." Regina scoffed. "Like this was some kind of holiday? With Henry's security, future, and life at risk as a runaway, you the absentee mom who chose to abandon him at birth, and all of your friends and boyfriend—the gawkers and strangers whom I have never met and don't know?" Regina frowned as the others frowned back at her, they were offended with the way she had spoken to them, and Penny lowered her head in shame.

"Regina…uh, Ms. Mills…" Graham tried to say, realizing his informal slipup.

"We're sorry, okay? We couldn't help what happened." Leonard said. "Henry chose to leave home to find Penny and the rest of us didn't know. We were shocked by his appearance, but we did the best we could with what a sudden surprise this was to get him back home, where he belongs." Graham in particular felt touched by the sentiment.

"But I…" Henry tried to say, wanting to protest the 'home, where he belongs' statement.

"Anything could have happened, and I didn't know." Regina said. "How could I possibly know what was going on while I was sitting here at home, worried to death for him and none of you contacted me?" Regina asked. "Or the police?"

"She's right, you know, you could have done better." Graham said, crossing his arms and nodding. Penny was slightly confused by Graham's strange back-and-forth behavior.

"We didn't want to overcomplicate things, create misunderstandings by involving the police." Leonard said. "Admittedly, we could have tried calling you, but Henry wouldn't give us the contact information and we didn't know what you would do. But we can handle this problem on our own, can't we?" He asked.

"Sheriff, I want you to arrest them." Regina said.

* * *

Dun-dun-dun-DDUUNN! Stay tuned.


	5. The Arrest

"Wow, this is so exciting!" Raj squealed to himself as they drove through Storybrooke. "Look at this place! I love it, absolutely gorgeous! I want to live here."

"What's the big deal?" Bernadette asked. "I mean, aside from all the secrecy and conspiracies surrounding this place, it still looks like a dump or at least it's the middle of nowhere in the Maine wilderness."

"Aren't you being a little harsh?" Raj asked.

"Well, maybe I am, but who cares?" Bernadette commented. "Who would want to live here unless they had to? I know you like it because it looks nice, Raj, and it does have some picturesque quality about it, but do you really want to live here for the rest of your life? Away from California, CalTech, and the exciting world of science, physics, math and aerospace exploration? They don't have anything like that near here, you know. You probably would have to go to Boston or someplace like that."

"I know." Raj sighed. "It's nice to dream about, though. And it's nice enough to visit. But you're right, I guess I would miss California and everything else."

"Exactly my point. I bet the real reason why it's not on any maps is because it's been forgotten." Bernadette said, still on a roll. "People don't come here because there's nothing here, really. Just a small old town, a fishing port, and the woods. It doesn't look like anything special."

"Bernie, I know you're right that it doesn't look special, but there's got to be something more here." Howard remarked. "Not even no-name towns get left off of maps. And there were some interesting readings beyond the norm, Sheldon was right about that. Maybe we should just take a look around, since we'll be staying here awhile with Penny and Leonard looking after Henry, to check out what we can find."

"I'm not sure about this." Bernadette muttered.

"It'll be okay." Howard reassured her.

"I must admit it has some charm. Mid-century Americana style mixed with the American Craftsman movement." Amy commented as she stared up at the clock tower. "Although they really do need to get someone to come in and fix the clock. The time's all wrong."

"It's not 1975 anymore." Howard joked. At last, they reached Regina Mills' manor, and stared up at the place in awe. "Would you look at that? The kid struck it rich! I wish I had been adopted." Howard sighed. "Then I wouldn't have been stuck with my mother." He shuddered.

"We all wish that." Bernadette said.

"Well, it is impressive, I'll grant you that, but what kind of life has Henry had here that he would go out and look for his birth mother?" Amy remarked, pushing up her glasses. "He must have had a reason to leave this place, even if it was just to get some questions answered."

"Poor kid. I wonder if it was just him and his adoptive mother living here all alone?" Raj asked. "I wonder if she's a lonely old woman like I'm a lonely guy?"

"Please tell me you're not seriously thinking about hitting on Henry's adoptive mother?" Howard asked, the other girls staring at Raj, aghast.

"Hey, I can't make any promises. If I see an invite, I'm going in." Raj said. "If it's for the good of the kid…."

"Don't make this about Henry." Amy said. "Shame on you."

"Sorry." Raj muttered, dejected.

* * *

They all went up to the house together, and Raj swore under his breath when he saw Sheriff Graham together with Regina—the competition here was pretty stiff, he had to grant Sheriff Graham that. Who would not be able to resist such a cute young, bearded, Irish man in uniform? The others all sighed at the tearful, happy reunion between Henry and his adoptive mother, Penny leaning against Leonard for support before she spoke up.

However, the others felt slightly offended by Regina's reaction to their 'travel arrangements', but they understood that she might have a right to feel that way, given her worry for Henry. Graham felt sympathetic to both sides of the argument as well, knowing what Regina went through, yet able to understand these strangers and their dilemma with Henry. It was confusing for him as well. And then Regina told him to arrest everybody.

"What? No, Mom, please don't do that!" Henry cried. "It's true, Mom, I did run away from home to find Penny. It's my fault this happened. I didn't mean for anyone else to get into trouble. Please don't blame them for what I did."

"He's quite right, you know." Sheldon said. "Logically speaking, he is the cause of our problems."

"You heard the kid! We've apologized, okay? We've said we're sorry, we brought the kid home, what more do you want from us?" Bernadette asked. "We're not superheroes, you know."

"Henry, you cannot take responsibility for this." Regina insisted to the boy. "You're too young. You didn't know any better. But they should have." She glared at the group. "I want to teach you all some respect and manners and to mind the law, the way you should have done!" Regina cried.

"Mind the law? We mind it plenty." Amy said. "Right, guys?" She got some awkward silence and askance glances from the rest of the group. "Guys?"

"You should have turned him over to the authorities the moment he turned up at your front doorstep." Regina said. "You should have done everything in your power to get him home as soon as possible, not dawdle about and luxuriate with your travel arrangements." Penny in particular winced.

"There you go again." Leonard muttered, shaking his head. "Travel arrangements."

"I'm ten years old! Surely I can take some responsibility for this mess?" Henry asked.

"Henry…" Regina warned.

"Yeah, let the kid take some of the blame!" Bernadette insisted.

"And I can't arrest them all!" Sheriff Graham cried, staring at the crowd of people before him as they all started yelling and arguing. "I've got room in the back of my car for three people at most, there's no way I'm going to fit all…seven of them in there!"

"Well, if you were able to stack us sideways and at odd angles, like a game of Tetris, I'm sure you would find a way." Sheldon said. "But that would be extremely uncomfortable, crowded, and I hate small, tight spaces."

"Well, make room! Find a way to squeeze them all in! Take two trips if you have to!" Regina insisted.

"I can't do that. The other suspects would get away." Sheriff Graham commented.

"Au contraire, I wouldn't run away." Sheldon said. "I intend to stay."

"And neither would I." Amy muttered, staring at her boyfriend. She wished sometimes that she didn't always have to go along with whatever Sheldon said, but she felt such a kinship and attachment to him that sometimes, she didn't mind it. Except for now, when it seemed like they all might be in danger, and Sheldon refused to budge.

"I'll help you restrain the others here until you get back." Regina told the sheriff.

"Oh, goody!" Raj cried out, clapping as the others stared at him, aghast. "Um, I mean, oh, no! Please don't restrain us with rope and, uh, fuzzy handcuffs."

"What kind of sick freak are you?" Regina asked.

"Go ahead, make my day." Howard snarled as best he could, trying to be a tough guy. "We'll get away, you just see if we don't. And then we'll be wanted fugitives from the law." Both Bernadette and Regina rolled their eyes as Sheriff Graham and the others tried not to laugh.

"It's not going to be seven, okay?" Penny said. "I'm the one who the kid wanted to see and meet, all right? I'm the reason why he ran away to California. If anyone is going to be arrested and held responsible for that, it's going to be me. So go ahead, Sheriff." She held out her hands.

"Penny, please…" Henry started to say.

"It's going to be okay." Penny said. "You're going to be fine."

"Aw, dang." Raj muttered his breath. "I wanted to go to jail, too."

"You don't really want that." Howard said.

"And me, too." Leonard said, joining along right beside her. "I'm her boyfriend. I deserve to be punished just as much as she does. I stood by her decision and I decided that we shouldn't go to the police."

"All right, then, that's good enough for me." Sheriff Graham said, feeling slightly relieved that he wouldn't have to deal with the rest as he gripped both Leonard and Penny by their shoulders and escorted them to his patrol car. "I'm placing you both under arrest on suspicion of child endangerment and kidnapping." He began reading them their rights as they got in. The other members of their group stared at the pair, aghast at the horror of it all, yet unable to do anything about it.

"No!" Henry cried. "Please leave them alone!" Penny closed her eyes in shame as Leonard shook his head.

"Come by the station in the morning." Sheriff Graham called out the window to the group. "Bail should be posted by then, but it's going to be five thousand or more each." He waved goodbye and drove away.

"He's joking, right?" Sheldon asked the others. "We can't afford to pay that, not right now, anyway."

"Henry, go to your room!" Regina cried.

"It isn't fair." Henry muttered, storming into the house.

"I hope you're happy." Bernadette snapped at Regina.

"I always am." Regina muttered, slamming the door shut and locking it.

"Henry was right. This isn't fair." Sheldon said as they trooped back to the cars, with Amy opting to drive Leonard's car. "Leonard shouldn't have to go. Neither one of them should have to go. This doesn't make any sense."

"I know, Sheldon, I know." Amy sighed. "But sometimes, life doesn't always make sense and sometimes people take advantage of the control and power they have over others."

"That doesn't seem right." Sheldon said, raising his head to stare at the mayor's manor. "That woman should pay for what she's done to my friends. She should get a sternly written letter at the very least, or some form of civil protest. You know what? I'm going to start a campaign against her. That ought to teach her a lesson."

"Sure, Sheldon." Howard nodded. "Sure. Let's just go find that bed and breakfast place Henry told us about, book a couple of rooms, and wait until the morning. Maybe then we can find a way to get Leonard and Penny out of there without paying a fortune."

"I hope you're right." Raj sighed, staring up at the mayor's mansion. "Poor kid. Poor Leonard and Penny."

* * *

Meanwhile, inside the mansion, Henry slammed his bedroom door shut and after dropping off his backpack on the floor, hurried over to the side of his bed. He reached into his pocket, pulling out a piece of paper with a phone number jotted down on it that he had managed to grab before coming upstairs. Hopefully, if Sheldon was right, he would be willing to make a deal…Henry knew that it was a desperate person who called upon the Dark One, Rumplestiltskin, for help in the stories in his book, but who else could get his birth mom Penny and her boyfriend out of jail? He dialed the number.

Across town, the phone ranged in Mr. Gold's house, which was unusual in that very few people knew his private home number and even fewer people would ever call that number, especially at this time of night. He reached out for the phone, more out of curiosity than anything else, and answered, "Hello?"

"Mr. Gold? It's me, Henry Mills."

"Henry." Mr. Gold leaned forward, surprised. "Are you okay? Where are you? We were all very worried about you."

It wasn't for effect when he had been concerned, for some reason, after he heard that the mayor's son had run away or vanished. It affected him, perhaps because he knew Regina so well and had helped her find and adopt this boy. Henry was a good boy, after all, everyone knew him and the problems that he faced, yet he was a likeable kid in spite of that. It was so unlike him to run away like this that Mr. Gold, as well as everyone else, was worried that something horrible must have happened to him. Yet here he was, calling Mr. Gold…it confused the man.

"I'm fine, I'm back home." Henry said. "Listen, I need your help. My mom, she arrested my birth mom. I went out to find her, my birth mom, her name is Penny Emma Swan…"

At that point, Rumplestiltskin's life flashed before his mind, all of the memories coming back, as Henry kept talking. "I'm sorry." Rumplestiltskin said after a moment, his hands curling into fists. "Did you say…Penny Emma Swan? Who names a child that? Emma would have been a fine enough name."

"Right." Henry slowly said, sensing something different about Mr. Gold, but he still continued, "Anyway, I went to California, found my birth mother, and she and her boyfriend and friends came out here…"

"I'm sorry, friends? Boyfriend? How many people are we talking about here?" Rumplestiltskin asked. The savior was fine enough, that was all he needed, but who were all of these other people?

"Seven if you count my birth mom as well." Henry said before he listed all of their names and occupations, stunning the former imp. Scientists had come to Storybrooke? This was going to be a disaster, he could tell. And if they were smart enough to realize that something was wrong here, they could break down the walls of the curse and disturb Regina before he had time to implement his plans and awaken the savior.

"They're all good people, even if they're a little weird. They don't mean any harm." Henry tried to say. "And they're smart. Sheldon might be the strangest of them all, but he figured out…" Henry hesitated. "He thought that you might be Rumplestiltskin when I told him my theory."

"What?" Mr. Gold/Rumple straightened. "You…said…what?"

"It's just a theory. Please don't get mad at me or him. But I thought…if I could ask for your help to get Penny and Leonard out of jail…I would owe you a favor." Henry said.

"Boy, you don't know what you have gotten yourself into." Mr. Gold/Rumple sighed. "Stay quiet, and don't breathe a word of this to anyone else. I'll talk to you later about your debt. I will try my best to get them out, for your sake." He muttered.

"Thank you, Rumplestiltskin. Good-bye." Henry said, hanging up.

"Rumple…" Mr. Gold muttered, annoyed at having been so blatantly revealed before he had a chance to recover and lie about his true identity. Hopefully, though, the kid could stay quiet about what he knew, for their sakes. He shook his head and mentally reviewed the names of Penny Swan and her friends. It wouldn't do to let so many people into Storybrooke without finding out who they were and where they came from, if they were of any threat to him or his plans. He had a feeling, with how easily they had gotten into Storybrooke without trouble, that some of them might have a connection to this place.


	6. The Police Station

Well, here I am again with another chapter. I hope you are all doing well, and that you enjoy this story. Here, most of the focus will be on Leonard and Penny, whom I feel I have neglected with my focus on the rest of the Big Bang Theory gang, although Graham does get the chance to talk a lot. I hope I have characterized everybody pretty well, or as well as can be expected.

* * *

"Five thousand or more each?" Leonard asked inside the police cruiser, stunned about the bail price.

"Well, somewhere around there, I suppose. I'm not entirely sure." Graham said. "But it's a good thing that you two confessed or at least admitted to a sense of guilt and responsibility for what Henry did and how you two responded." Graham remarked, glancing up at Penny and Leonard through his rear-view mirror. "Perhaps the judge, if this case does go to trial, might be lenient on you two for that reason alone. And perhaps Regina might let you two go for a plea bargain or some other kind of arrangement, seeing as how Henry was safely returned and seems fine for the most part." Graham laughed. "Heck, I might even add in a few words of my own since I don't have to deal with arresting seven people now instead of just two."

"You think so?" Penny asked. "Thank you."

"It's possible, anything is, I suppose." Sheriff Graham said, frowning. "Although Regina can be a hard woman, not easy to please, and she's not easy to budge on any type of issue when she wants to have everything go her own way. Believe me, I know."

I bet you do, Leonard thought to himself, having seen the sheriff coming out of Regina's house just as they arrived there, which made him believe that the sheriff and mayor of Storybrooke were having an affair or at least just dating. He wasn't sure about the ethical issues involved there, if either one of them could get into trouble for dating each other when that might influence their working relationship and cause local corruption if they sided with each other, but the affair might cause a stir in the local population and negatively affect their political and professional careers and ambitions.

But Leonard didn't want to bring up that topic when such an accusation could lead to more trouble with the sheriff and mayor of Storybrooke, and he didn't want to anger Regina again, not when that might make things worse for himself, Penny, his friends and even Henry. He had to think of everyone else, after all. Neither did he want to upset this sheriff, who was a pretty good guy, from what little Leonard could tell about him. They might need him to side with and defend them to Regina, and the only way that could happen was if they convinced him that they were good people.

"Are you sure you can't change her mind?" Penny wheedled.

Sheriff Graham, who was about to nod, hesitated. "Well, she can be persuaded, I suppose, given on how firm or soft she is with a subject, with the right argument and the direct approach, although I think she might be very firm in this case with Henry's welfare at stake."

"Good to know. Yeah, I guess I would be, too, in her case." Penny sighed. "I just wish that she might budge enough to see that Henry is my son as well as hers and, even though I gave him up to be adopted by her, I'm still concerned for his safety and welfare as well. I wouldn't have jeopardized him, when he was my responsibility for a little while, and even though it was a shock and surprise when he turned up at my front door, I handled the situation as best I could to bring him back home safely as soon as possible."

"That's nice, I suppose." Graham said, nodding. "You might want to mention that at trial, perhaps the judge or jury might take pity on you then."

"Ugh, this is hopeless." Penny moaned as Leonard patted her on the back.

"Hey, don't worry or stress out too much." Graham said. "Everyone has a weakness or a tipping point, and Regina has reached and crossed over that point several times already, though with my helping her to pull back on her demands." Graham said. "But she still gets herself and everyone else around her into binds that she can't control. She might get into trouble one of these days for being too demanding and authoritative, but she just wants to know that everything is under control. That's always been important to Regina."

"Controlling. She sounds nice." Leonard sighed. "No wonder Henry thinks that his adoptive mother is the evil queen from his storybook."

"Oh, quit talking about that. We are dealing with some real things here, not just fantasy." Penny said.

"Oh, you know about that?" The sheriff asked, surprising Leonard as, for a moment, he almost believed the sheriff would tell him the fantasy was true. "Henry showed us all his storybook at one time or another, trying to convince us of our identities or ask us some questions." Graham said, reassuring Leonard that reality was the way he always thought it was. "I'm the wild huntsman, apparently, who was raised by wolves, spared Snow White's life, and got his heart taken out of him by the evil queen for his trouble. Actually, since Regina is supposed to be the evil queen, then I suppose she still has my heart in her possession." Graham commented.

"Hey, don't blame me for Henry's obsession." Leonard told Penny, not commenting on Sheriff Graham's trouble. "I'm not like Sheldon, obviously, encouraging it. But I do believe that Henry's obsession with his storybook is related to the people around him. Henry is coping with some serious problems and issues with his mother controlling him and his adoption and he wants to resolve them somehow, even if it is by identifying the people surrounding him with fantasy characters."

"So it's my fault then that Henry has these fantasy obsessions because I gave him up to be adopted by this Regina character?" Penny asked, angry.

"I'm not saying it's your fault!" Leonard cried. "I'm just saying it's a coping mechanism! Henry doesn't fully understand everything going on around him, the reasons behind his adoption or why his adoptive mother and people in general act the way they do. He's just trying to explain their actions or reasons through stories of his own so that he might be able to fully appreciate them. Henry will someday understand why you had to give him up. Maybe if you sat down with him and had a talk, maybe then he might be able to let go of his fantasy obsessions, but it's not your fault."

"It certainly feels like it." Penny grumbled.

"Really?" Graham asked, having listened intently to Leonard's explanation. "Wow, that all does sound fascinating. Where did you pick up all of this information from, professor?"

"My mother is an expert child psychologist, who understands this sort of thing better than I do, but I still pick up on some tidbits here and there from her research, studies, and experiments. I was just thinking of what I had learned from her and applied it here." Leonard shuddered. "Half the time, when I was a child, I was the subject of some of her experiments."

"No kidding, huh? That sounds ruthless. Was that allowed?" The sheriff asked.

"I'm not sure." Leonard shrugged. "She usually got her way, whatever she did. She explained that it was her parental right to care for me the way she did, and as an individual, I could operate within my own rights, although it didn't always feel that way to me."

"Oh, Leonard," Penny said, rubbing his shoulder.

"Nuts, that's what it sounds like to me." Graham said, shaking his head as he parked the police car at the station.

* * *

"Well, here we are. I'm sorry for the conditions, folks," Graham said as he escorted Penny and Leonard into the sheriff station, "But we've only got one cell with one cot right in the middle of the station and I have to escort you to the restrooms whenever you do have to go. By the way, do any of you have to go right now?" He asked as they passed by the restrooms.

"I may have to go. Penny?" Leonard asked, feeling uncomfortable with the whole situation of being under arrest.

"No, I'm good for now. I went to the restroom at the gas station before we got here." Penny said, trying not to panic and remain cool when she didn't want Leonard to get any more upset than he already was. She could tell, even though he wasn't in full panic mode, that he was on the brink of it.

"Well, that's good news at least. I don't want to deal with you both going at the same time." Graham grinned, securing Penny in the cell and then waiting while Leonard went to the restroom before putting him in the cell. "We usually don't expect to have more than one person under arrest at any given time, not like Los Angeles or other cities, I expect." Sheriff Graham said, having contemplated this for awhile. "They must have dozens of people under arrest at any given time in jail, and then hundreds more already in prison."

"Yeah, that's probably true." Penny said, slowly nodding to get on Sheriff Graham's good side. "But not in Storybrooke, right?"

"No, Storybrooke is a peaceful little town. We don't have much of a crime rate out here." Graham said before he added, "We're not prepared for this kind of situation, but I may be able to scrounge up a sleeping bag for one of you to lie on the floor. I like to go camping." He added. "Good exercise, and it gets me outdoors in the open air in the woods, which I love. We really have a wonderful forest surrounding Storybrooke, pristine land which hardly anybody has touched. I'll go get the bag." He left them for a minute.

"Welcome to Maybury." Leonard grumbled to himself. "With Sheriff Andy Griffith."

"Well, he seems nice, at any rate." Penny hissed before Sheriff Graham came back with a sleeping bag. "Thank you. We appreciate it." She said, smiling as she accepted the sleeping bag through the bars.

"No problem. Pleasant dreams to you all. Good night." Sheriff Graham said, leaving them soon with almost every light turned off in the station, save for one in the hall.

"Perhaps I should have taken him up on that offer of using the restroom earlier." Penny grumbled. "Here, Leonard, you take the sleeping bag."

"Well…all right." He added, seeing the look on her face and deciding to be chivalrous. He settled down on the floor in the sleeping bag, she took the cot, and they tried to fall asleep. But in the wee morning hours, Leonard groaned in his sleep. "No, please…don't, don't let me go. Papa, please." He whimpered.

Penny groaned as she stirred and woke up, saying, "Leonard? Leonard? Hey, is everything okay with you?" She asked, kicking him slightly.

Leonard gasped as he fully woke up. "What—what happened? Is it an earthquake? Why am I on the floor? Where am I?" He asked, frantically looking around in the dark.

"Police station in Storybrooke, Maine, remember? We got arrested bringing Henry back." Penny said.

"Oh, right, right, I thought that part was still in the nightmare." Leonard sighed.

"Are you okay? You were talking in your sleep." Penny said, trying to recall what he was saying. "You said something about your father, Papa, letting you go."

"Oh, that's a weird dream. An old dream." Leonard frowned to himself. "I can't remember, but I think I dream about a man who is not my father, yet he is, letting me go at the edge of a hole and I fall…for miles upon miles." Leonard shuddered. "A horrible nightmare."

"Well, I'm not letting you go, and neither are you letting me go, right?" Penny asked, sitting down beside Leonard. "We're stuck together like glue, no matter what." She smiled.

"That's the way I feel, too." Leonard said, smiling as he kissed her.

They nuzzled together inside the sleeping bag and then on the cot, waiting for dawn. Leonard couldn't entirely shake off the effect of the dream, though the details faded from his mind. It felt ominous to him somehow that this old dream, which he thought had died out years ago, should so suddenly return and recur on almost every night ever since Henry came into their lives. Even though it was superstitious, and he knew that the dream was probably recurring only because of all the added stress in his life, he almost thought that it was a sign, somehow, that things were going to go horribly wrong here in Storybrooke.

* * *

Eventually, Sheriff Graham arrived at the station, opening it up. "Well, congratulations you two for surviving a night here on your own, and things are starting to look up for your case."

"What do you mean? What is it?" Penny asked, coming up to the bars as Leonard sat up on the cot.

"Looks like you two have a defense attorney! Our very own Mr. Gold here has volunteered his services, free of charge." Sheriff Graham said, indicating the gaunt, tousled-hair man hobbling into the room at that moment. "Which is very rare indeed," Sheriff Graham added.

"Thank you, Sheriff." Mr. Gold/Rumplestiltskin said, eying the man before turning to his defendants. "Miss. Swan." He said, smiling and bowing his head at the young would-be actress who would be savior of this town, if everything went according to plan. The morning light captured her glory and beauty in full radiant revelation, with a heavenly smile on her face as she appreciated him. "And…uh, Mr. Hofstader?" He said, inclining his head to look beyond her into the shadows, where the young man sat sulking in sullen silence. Mr. Gold couldn't get a very good look at him with his head down.

"Doctor or Professor Hofstader, if you would be so kind." Leonard said crisply, not really wanting to look up at the man who, though he may seem nice, still rubbed Leonard the wrong way and gave him a case of goosebumps and the shivers when he first walked in and spoke. There was something funny going on here, which Leonard did not fully understand, but he found himself disliking Mr. Gold instantly and not trusting him.

"Professor Hofstader." Mr. Gold said, the ice in his voice enough to chill anyone to the bones if they had an ounce of blood left in them, yet the professor did not seem to be too affected.

He instantly disliked this professor, too, although he wondered why there was so much animosity here. There had to be a reason, possibly related to a former life in the Enchanted Forest with Rumplestiltskin? But the professor, so far as he could tell, seemed unfamiliar to him, although he definitely had a lot of clients in his time, some of which he might have forgotten about or ignored. He couldn't remember all of the faces of the people he had dealt with.

"Leonard, be nice, we need him." Penny insisted. "He can call you anything he wants to, so long as we can hire him free of charge."

"Listen to your girlfriend, my boy. You might live longer." Mr. Gold added, grinning at the thought that anyone would do anything possible if they could get something expensive that they desperately wanted for free. They never thought about any hidden, extra charges, though.

Penny frowned at Mr. Gold, grinning like an imp; no wonder Henry thought that he might be Rumplestiltskin. Don't be ridiculous, Penny's inner voice said as she shook her head. Soon she might start believing in fairy tales as well, and then where would they be? Sheldon's and Henry's theory was just getting to her, that's all.

"I don't want him to defend us, or defend me at least." Leonard said, still not looking up at Mr. Gold. "You can hire him for yourself if you want to. You deserve a good lawyer who will help you be with Henry. He needs you." For some reason, Mr. Gold felt oddly touched by that sentiment.

"Leonard, you are being ridiculous. I have no idea where you are getting this stubborn streak from, but I am not letting you give up your only chance of getting out of here, all because you have some insane grudge over a minor insult." Penny remarked. "Is it worth losing your freedom over? Or else would you rather have me refuse Mr. Gold's services, too?" She asked. "Because I will if-"

"No, I don't want you to stay here if you don't have to." Leonard said, sighing as he finally looked up at Mr. Gold. "All right, I suppose I will accept his services." He still didn't like the man, though.

"Finally. Good choice." Mr. Gold said, approaching the cell bars and getting a better look at Leonard, who he still did not recognize, but there was something troubling about the aspect of the young man, something that nudged a spot in his mind. He would figure it out, though.


End file.
